Varig Flight 254 was a Boeing 737-241, c/n 21006/398, registration PP-VMK, on a scheduled passenger flight from São Paulo, Brazil to Belém, Pará, Brazil, with several intermediate stopovers, on 3 September 1989. Prior to take off from Marabá, Pará, towards the final destination, the crew entered an incorrect heading into the flight computer. Instead of flying towards its destination, the plane flew due west and after some time was over a remote area of the Amazon jungle. Attempts to reach an alternative airport were unsuccessful, and the plane eventually ran out of fuel. The pilot made a belly landing in the jungle, 1,050 miles (1,690 km) northwest of Rio de Janeiro. The survivors were rescued two days later. Thirteen passengers died, and many more sustained serious injuries.
Read more about Varig Flight 254: Causes
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.... Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)